His command is backed by great power. No one can resist or question it.
Parallel translations
- WEB for the king’s word is supreme. Who can say to him, “What are you doing?”
- KJV Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?
- BSB For the king’s word is supreme, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?”
- NKJV Where the word of a king is, there is power; And who may say to him, “What are you doing?”
- NASB Since the word of the king is authoritative, who will say to him, “What are you doing?”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A king's word carries supreme authority, and few can openly question what he does. This sober observation about earthly power calls for wise, careful conduct.
Overview
The verse describes the unchallengeable authority a monarch held in the ancient world. It is descriptive, naming the reality the wise must navigate, not an endorsement of tyranny. Ultimately it points beyond every earthly king to God, whose word truly is supreme and unanswerable, yet who is perfectly just (Job 9:12; Daniel 4:35).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Job 9:12Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, ‘What are you doing?’
- Rom 13:1–4Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God.
- Dan 4:35All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stop his hand, or ask him, What are you doing?
- Prov 20:2The terror of a king is like the roaring of a lion. He who provokes him to anger forfeits his own life.
- Job 34:18–19Who says to a king, ‘Vile!’ or to nobles, ‘Wicked!’?
- Rom 9:20But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
- Prov 19:12The king’s wrath is like the roaring of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass.
- Prov 30:31the greyhound, the male goat also; and the king against whom there is no rising up.
- Dan 3:15Now if you are ready whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image which I have made, good: but if you don’t worship, you shall be cast the same hour into the middle of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands?
- Job 33:12–13“Behold, I will answer you. In this you are not just, for God is greater than man.
- Luke 12:4–5“I tell you, my friends, don’t be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
- 1 Kgs 2:46So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he went out, and fell on him, so that he died. The kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.
- 1 Kgs 2:25King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he fell on him, so that he died.
- 1 Kgs 2:29–34King Solomon was told, “Joab has fled to Yahweh’s Tent, and behold, he is by the altar.” Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, fall on him.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.
How Ecclesiastes 8:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.